The proposed research will test the claim that obligations of reciprocity are a moral universal, an assumption which underlies much of the treatment of reciprocity in the literature. Anthropological data from the Tonga Islands of the South Pacific suggest that the connection between obligation and reciprocity is problematic. Such data raise questions about whether relations of reciprocity generate obligations in the way that many philosophers have assumed on the basis of their analyses of reciprocity in our own society. The project involves joint research by an analytic philosopher and a social anthropologist, and capitalizes on previous work by each investigator. Research in the Tonga Islands will be conducted over a period of three months in the summer of 1978. The focus of investigation will be mechanisms in Tongan society relating to reciprocity and the extent to which they are viewed by Tongans as a matter of morality. In the field the anthropologist will follow up materials on reciprocity gathered in earlier fieldwork; the role of the philosopher will be to investigate Tongans' views of reciprocal relationships and what they imply. Working as a team on a day-to-day basis, each will bring their perspective to bear on formulating lines of enquiry needed to cast light on Tongans' moral notions.